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The Village of a Single Surname
Clinging to the cliffs of the rocky, wave battered North Devon coastline west of Bideford, its cottages clustered in a small valley carved by north flowing streams in their rush to the sea, is the former fishing village of Bucks Mills.
Smaller and less spectacular than neighbouring Clovelly, three miles farther west along the coast, Bucks Mills shares something of the character of its bigger counterpart, yet has been largely spared the attentions which have made Clovelly a tourist's Mecca.
At Bucks Mills one senses predominantly the quietness of a remote coastal village, resting in retirement it seems from busier days of fishing and traffic in stone, enlivened in summer by only a minority of holidaymakers who come often just to fish for prawns, or to potter with a boat along the pebble shore.
Until the middle of the 19th century the village was known as Buckish Mills, and it is named as such on the first edition map of the Ordnance Survey.
But by , when farmers were still bringing corn to the water powered corn mill (in the vicinity of the present ice-cream shop) to be ground by the miller, Simon Crews, the place had become Bucks Mills.
It was then a lively communtiy of around inhabitants, St Anne's Church had been built in about , and there were both Wesleyan and Bible Christian chapels; William Dark was the shopkeeper, and the registrar of births, deaths and marriages vaccination officer, and postmaster was Richard Braund.
The surname Braund is inseparable from Bucks Mills. In earlier days the village is said to have been inhabited exclusively by people of that name, descendants, so tradition claims, of Spanish survivors from an Armada galleon sunk in the bay in the 16th century, who came ashore and established the settlement.
Although this colourful story is likely to be apocryphal, discounted as myth by members of the Braund family among others, there is a strong possibility of Spanish ancestry here, as elsewhere around the western coasts, dating from more ancient settlers, Iberians of the early Bronze age who brought Megalithic cultures into the country.
But whatever their origina, the Braunds have undoubtedly been in occupation at Bucks Mills for many generations, their past ferocity in scaring away prospective newcomers and the natural isolation of the place contributing to the formation of a tight knit family colony. Not that Braunds have always stayed at home; many struck out to settle elsewhere, and today descendants bearing the name return to visit Bucks Mills from other parts of the country and from abroad.
The present senior member of the Braund family still in residence at Bucks Mills is Mr Joe Braund, now in his 70s, from whom, as from his sister, Miss Mamie Braund, who also lives in the village, comes much of the first hand information contained in this article. Mr Braund, like his late father, was a fisherman until the industry ended here in the inter-war years.
In the early part of the present century, 16 fishing boats put out regularly from Bucks Mills, while another 60 worked from Clovelly. Herrings were caught from September until Christmas, after which there would be line fishing for cod, whiting and other types.
Having no jetty, Bucks Mills was not an easy place for landing the returning boats.
These, of heavy oak construction to withstand the force of the pebbles, had to be beached on the open shore and winched, for which the help of the women and children was often required, while the prevalence of sudden forceful waves liable to turn a boat sideways, frequently necessitated the use also of a stern rope.
Herrings were solde at half a crown for and among the buyers were farmers of the surrounding district who used to come and collect quantities of the fish for pickling.
Beside fishing, there were in earlier days considerable comings and goings with stone.
Massive limekilns which still remain bear witness to some of the activity which went on. Limestone was brought in here, as at other points along the North Devon coasts and estuaries, from South Wales and burn in the kilns for use as a fertiliser on the land.
Unlike a kiln at Greencliff, a few miles to the east, which had an independent source of fuel - a vein of soft coal known as culm - those at Bucks Mills had to rely entirely on imported coal, also brought by sea.
The longest disused of the kilms is a square structure, standing like some ancient defensive barbican, built into the cliff face. To it the limestone, dumped from boats on to the beach, was hauled in horse-drawn carts, passing beneath an arch which still remains and around a portion now erodged, and tipped into the top.
After the burning process the lime was extracted from the bottom of the kiln and raised for dispatch from the higher level up a short, but steep inclinded plane which is still discernible. On this were two sets of narrow guage rails, the lime being carried in skins which were lifted by a device known as 'the machine'.
This was a gin, powered by a horse, which, by means of rope or chain attachments and by walking around a circle, operated a winding drum.
The other kiln structure, at a lower level by the quay and now grass covered, has undergone some alteration and received much new stonework in preservation. When it was still being worked, at the beginning of the present century, local boys used to cook limpets and potatoes in the warm kiln ashes.
Farmers came with their carts to collect the lime.
Other carts came for pebbles from the beach, which were taken away and cracked on roadside dumps for use on the highways, while quantities were also collected by boat and taken off across the sea. Still remembered too, are the donkeys which used to plod their way up from the beach with their panniers loaded with sand.
In the past there was a dry walled stone pier extending from the beach, built probably at the same time as the large kiln.
This disintegrated before living memory, although pieces of it still remain.
Bucks mills history and biography wikipedia Bucks Mills is known as the village of a single surname and its history is inextricably linked with that of the Braund family. Very little of the settlement existed before the year and a full community reconstruction has been carried out, creating a One Place Study.Slightly to the west is the Gore, a ridge of rocks stretching out to sea, which it is believed may also have been partly man-made, perhaps two or three centuries ago; having a 'elbow' towards the Clovelly side it could have been designed as a protective breakwater.
An indication of the erosion which occurs along this coast is the handed down information that Clovelly of which there is now an unobstructed view from the quay, could not be seen from Bucks Mills in the mid-8th century.
Changes in the sea - said by some to be rougher now than in the past - and in the habitats of fish perhaps due to altering currents and the effect on food availability have been factors in the decline of Bucks Mills fishing.
All that is now done is for pleasure, mainly by local farmers in their spare time.
After mackerel there is a short season of summer herrings, but no longer any winter ones. A few lobster are caught but prawns these days are hard to find, their shortage it has been suggested, perhaps due to the presence of detergents or other pollution in the water.
Bucks mills history and biography books
Bucks Mills is a small English village within the parish of Woolfardisworthy on the north coast of Devon. It was anciently the mill of the manor of Bucks, anciently Bokish, [1] Buckish, [2] Bochewis etc., listed in the Domesday Book of as Bochewis. [3].
When summer has ended and the holidaymakers have packed and left, 22 of the village's cottages stand empty. Only seven are inhabited permanently, and in each of them there dwells a Braund. Then, its mood dependent on the weather and the sea, the village settles into its winter seclusion - quiet days when driftwood smoke curls sleepily from the chimneys, and rousing ones when the beating waves charge the air with spray and clatter the pebbles on the deserted shore.